Twin Cities Real Estate
Minneapolis-Saint Paul is the most populous urban area in the state
of Minnesota, United States, and is composed of 188 cities and townships.
Built around the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers, the
area is also nicknamed the Twin Cities for its two largest cities,
Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the state capital. The area is part
of a larger U.S. Census division named Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington,
MN-WI, the country's 16th-largest metropolitan area composed of
eleven counties in Minnesota and two counties in Wisconsin. This
larger area in turn is enveloped in the U.S. Census combined statistical
area called Minneapolis-St. Paul-St. Cloud, MN-WI with an estimated
population of 3.5 million people in 2006, ranked the 13th most populous
in the U.S.
To remind everyone there were actually two cities, people started
using the phrase Dual Cities around 1872, which evolved into Twin
Cities. Despite the "Twin" moniker, the two cities are
independent municipalities with defined borders and are quite distinct
from each other. Minneapolis, with its broad boulevards, easily
navigable grid layout, and modern downtown architecture, has been
referred to as the "first" (i.e. furthest east) city of
the American West; Saint Paul, which sports narrower streets laid
out much more irregularly, clannish neighborhoods, and a vast collection
of well preserved late-Victorian architecture, is considered to
be the "last" (i.e. farthest west) of the Eastern cities.
Also of some note is the differing cultural backgrounds of the two
cities: Minneapolis being affected by its early (and still influential)
Scandinavian/Lutheran heritage, while St. Paul was touched by its
early Irish and German Catholic roots.
Often, the area is referred to as simply "The Cities,"
both within Minnesota, but generally outside the metropolitan region,
and even in the bordering states of Iowa, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas.
Areas of Minnesota outside of the Twin Cities are collectively referred
to as "outstate" by people from the Twin Cities metro
area. Today, the two cities directly border each other and their
downtown districts are about 9 miles (14 km) apart. The Twin Cities
are generally said to be in "east central" Minnesota.
The Cities draw commuters from as far away as Rochester, St. Cloud,
Mankato and Eau Claire.
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